A long-submerged memory rose to the surface of my awareness one day. It sought the light and air for healing, the truth of union.

When I was four years old, my mother led me into a mysterious building.  It smelled  bad. The harsh lights made me squint. I held tight to my mother’s hand. She released me into the vice-like grips of three ladies dressed in black robes. They looked down at me and frowned. They dragged me kicking and screaming down a long corridor. They took me into a room, lifted me up onto a hard bed and held me down. They stripped me then strapped a mask over my face. I breathed a sickening smell. I woke up in a strange bed surrounded by white curtains. Both my hands were bandaged in gauze. I called out, “Mommy! Mommy!“  But she didn’t come.

In that moment, feeling abandoned and betrayed, I lost the trust of innocence. And I was angry! This began a pattern of distrusting women-mother, girlfriend, wife. I put my trust in my profession. Architecture, “the most demanding of mistresses,” was also a fickle temptress. She was a tease, always luring me with promises to fulfill my dreams. After forty-five years of devotion to her, she too abandoned me.

Once my childhood memory surfaced, it revealed that I had subconsciously associated abandonment and betrayal with women. It also revealed that my distrust had led me to behave with women in ways that kept this pattern in looping mode. Then it dawned on me. Women were simply messengers, reflecting back to me, my abandonment and betrayal of the feminine within me. I realized my wholeness was unattainable without her to balance my maleness. When I embraced her as part of me, I felt freed from the jaws of gender polarization, perhaps all polarization. After we made love I even felt more manly. My greatest treasure, creativity, exploded within me like the fireworks grand finale on the Fourth of July.

My story feels archetypal, as if we are all living out some ancient right of passage. At first bonding, a child mistakes the love of its mother for the love of god/goddess. At the Soul-appointed time, mother appears to betray her child. The illusion of separateness is set. The child loses its innocent trust, wanders for decades seeking something that might satisfy its longing for wholeness. With no satisfaction found in the external world, the child, now an adult, turns inward as a last resort and finds within its own Soul, its perfect mate. 

What happens next? Ah! Be the wholeness that I AM! Explore universes together, two as one! Create new worlds! Share profound experiences, the beauty everywhere, in and through us! Celebrate our contrasts and our commonalities! Be a mirror, reflecting wholeness to the world so others see their own! Be the fearless child, the innocent holy fool once again, loving freely! Summoning courage and boldness in our heart, we dive into the water, go deep to the silty bottom, and bring to the surface another shining pearl!    

 Please visit Albert Moore on Facebook to watch the video illustrating the link between balancing masculine and feminine within us and the emergence of New Earth. 

On a journey to the Pre-Columbian archeological site of Tiwanaku in the Andes of western Bolivia, I got separated from my travel companions. The site closed for the day, trapping me inside.  A fence topped with razor-wire prevented my escape. I walked along the fence looking for a way out. As daylight began to fade, I found a break in the fence and squeezed through. Off in the distance, I spotted a dirt road. Left or right? I chose right.

A sudden thunderstorm soaked me to the bone. Shivering, I slogged through ankle-deep mud. Low ominous clouds made the blackest night fall fast. I was completely disoriented. Strangely, I felt no dread, no worry. Every cell in my body told me that nothing mattered—my family, my career, my life, not even my possible death. Everything felt irrelevant. That’s when real freedom struck me!  Janis popped in. “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.” In that moment, I had nothing to defend or protect.

Each July 4th we Americans celebrate our freedoms. Many of us think of them as being derived from wars bravely fought and evil “others” defeated. I honor all those who fight these external wars, including my dad, mom and one of my sisters.

To me, external wars are internal ones denied. I am engaging the internal war, the only war that ends all wars. Combat with ego can be brutal. Ego’s divisive voice is the real terrorist. It declares there is an “other.” It could be a fellow human, the Earth, or my Creator out to get me. Ego dies a thousand deaths. This is the only war won by surrender.

When I surrender to the oneness of my Soul, the illusion of “other” dissolves. Without “other” to judge or to judge me, there is no victim or perpetrator, no blame, shame or fault. The need for external conflict falls away, my mind’s creative capacities are free to serve my heart.

Inner freedom feels like all my senses are singing in harmony. My body feels luminous, at one with everything. I smile for no apparent reason.

Moment-by-moment mindfulness sustains this freedom. On my morning walk the other day, I caught myself judging an “other.” Immediately I felt imprisoned like I did at Tiwanaku. Escape required me to surrender again. A self-correcting measure emerged. I reframed my thoughts and language to acknowledge our oneness. The “other” dissolved. I was free again.

This 4th of July I celebrate the progress I’ve made in gaining the freedom to respond from my Soul’s Essence rather than   react from ego’s conditioning. It’s a freedom available to all who dare to surrender in order to bring forth the New Earth.